


have you ever been in love?

by lunick



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Kinda?, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 13:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/862470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunick/pseuds/lunick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanai likes Momokan -- and he hates that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	have you ever been in love?

"Hey coach, have you ever been in love?"

The question slips out of Hanai's mouth without his permission, his throat going dry. He swallows, but it doesn't seem to relieve the patch in the back of his throat, and his breath seems to stick there and catch on the way to his lungs.

Momokan makes a light humming noise, shifting the papers on her desk around. It was Golden Week, and they were at training camp, and Hanai can hear the cicadas chirping in the surrounding forest in this mildly uncomfortable silence that fell over the makeshift office. The air is thick, and not just because of the humidity, and the captain shifts his weight, making the floorboards creak.

"I can't say I have."

She is only 24, now.

She's 24 to Hanai's 17. A seven year difference, and Hanai hates himself for thinking about the possibilities, for trying to figure out if it could be weird -- but of course it's weird. A player and a coach, that's just wrong. He hates himself for trying to convince himself that it wouldn't be weird, and that this isn't stupid, that the ridiculous and humiliating tightness he feels in his chest when she addressees him isn't inappropriate and stupid.

"Why do you ask, Hanai-kun?"

Because I like you, coach.

He wants to hit himself. Thinking it is just as bad as saying it, and he can feel a blush creeping up his neck, and he brings up a hand to drag along the side of his face to try and rub away the redness in his skin. He crosses his arms over his chest.

He tries to think of when it even got to this point, how he switched from saying he was going to quit the team because girls can't coach baseball to having a fluttery feeling in his stomach when he thought about his coach. It slid so easily from arrogance on that first day, to fear just a few moments later, to the respect that the whole team felt for Momokan... and then he found himself worrying about her, and feeling for her, and wanting to know little, insignificant details about her, and wondering to himself if their ages were just too far apart to work.

And of course, he knows that they are, and he knows he has to keep this entire thing a secret, or he'll never hear the end of it from the team. They would laugh, and it would cause so much unnecessary embarrassment and endless taunting... no. He could never tell a soul, and he would just have to wait for it to pass, it's only two more years--

"Hanai-kun?"

Hanai jerks his head up, looking at his coach. He realizes he's been quiet for really far too long, and Momokan is looking at him with this expectant and yet somehow knowing look, as if she already knows, or she suspects something (whether or not what she suspects is correct or not is another matter entirely).

No, he has to keep this entire thing a secret, so he can't let on that he likes her.

"No reason," he lies, and the words catch in the dry spot in the back of his throat.

He hates that.


End file.
